


All This Over A Girl

by GE72



Category: Law & Order
Genre: Closed Case, Epilogue, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 17:43:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12392973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GE72/pseuds/GE72
Summary: An epilogue to the season 19 episode "Pledge." A private investigator has some information for Mike Cutter and Connie Rubirosa that sheds new light on a closed case.





	All This Over A Girl

Connie Rubirosa opened up the New York Ledger newspaper and saw the headline: DOUBLE MURDERER TAKES PLEA.

The story was about Ned Lasky, the magazine writer who murdered the twelve year old son of Joyce Foley, and her housekeeper, out of revenge over a college incident. Lasky had taken a plea and was sentenced to thirty years to life for the double murder.

The story was detailed and accurate, something that was sometimes missing in New York journalism. It mentioned Lasky, as a student from the University of Massachusetts over thirty years ago, was invited to a mixer by a girl from one of sororities at Dartmouth, Kappa Delta Alpha. Lasky showed up at the sorority, only to be thrown out by Miss Foley, the sorority president.

Lasky, believing he had been prevented from having the girl of his dreams, went into a shell the rest of his days in college. He then began to obsess about the sorority and began looking for this girl at other schools after finding she had transferred to another school.

The story went on, as it painted Lasky as obsessed and vindictive towards Foley, especially when prosecutor Mike Cutter put a former Kappa girl, Susan Laramie, on the stand, and led Lasky to believe she was the girl he fell in love with. The Susan he was in love with, Susan Walden, had died years earlier at the hands of her husband.

Connie folded up the newspaper and was about to review a legal brief when her office phone rang.

“District attorney’s office, Rubirosa.”

“Hello, this is Jack Joslin. I’m a private investigator from Miami. I was wondering if we can talk about Ned Lasky.”

“Mr. Lasky confessed to two murders yesterday,” Connie said. “The case is closed.”

“I know that. I’ve been watching the news the past couple of days. I’m here on business, but I have some information about Lasky on another case.”

“Another case?”

“He wasn’t involved in another murder,” Joslin said. “Someone hired me to look for him. Is there somewhere we can meet?”

“You can come to the district attorney’s office around noon,” Connie suggested.

“Thank you.”

After she hung up the phone, Connie went over to Mike Cutter’s office and informed him of what was going on.

“Another case?” asked Mike. “Any idea what kind of case?”

“All he said is that someone hired him to look for Lasky.”

“I wonder what his information is,” Cutter said. “I just hope it’s not exculpatory.”

“I doubt that.”

Noon came around, and so did detective Cyrus Lupo. Him and Kevin Bernard investigated the murder case and arrested Lasky for the murders. Lupo was there to check on a past case that might have some bearing on the case that him and Bernard were currently working on. Connie filled him in on what was going on with the closed Lasky case.

“What kind of information could he have on Lasky?” Lupo asked. “The case is already closed.”

“We’re about to find out,” Connie said.

Security called from downstairs to let Connie know that Mr. Joslin had arrived. A couple of minutes later, Mr. Joslin went into the conference room, where Connie, Cutter, and Lupo, were waiting. Introductions were made, they sat down at the table, and then, Cutter went right to the point.

“What is this information you have about Lasky?” he asked.

“It was from a case from some years back,” Joslin said. “I know from what I read in the papers and saw in the news that he was looking for his dream girl all these years.”

“It was a pipe dream,” Cutter said.

“It kind of came true. His dream girl was looking for him.”

That caught everyone’s attention. 

“Susan Walden hired you?” Connie asked. Susan Walden was the sorority girl who jokingly asked Ned Lasky to the party all those years ago, only to have Joyce Foley throw him out, supposedly at Susan’s request.

“She did,” Joslin answered. “She hired me to look for him.”

“For what purpose?” Lupo asked. “To disappoint him again?”

“No,” Joslin replied. “To say she was sorry.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s the impression I got. You know about Susan Walden, right? Rich girl, married a rich guy, then gets killed by him.”

“We know the story,” Cutter said.

“By the way, he’s a guest for the rest of his life in a Florida prison,” Joslin said. “Anyway, eight years ago, Susan Walden comes into my office, and asks me to find this guy. He was a student at the University of Massachusetts, and she had invited him to this sorority party at Dartmouth. She said she did it on a lark, but the guy showed up. She was taken by surprise that he came up all the way to do this.”

“And that’s when Susan asked Joyce Foley to ‘quash a bug’,” said Cutter. “It was their way of saying ‘throw the bum out.’”

“No, that’s where Susan decided to see what this guy was all about,” Joslin said. “If he got this far, she wanted to see what else he would do. But as you said, Joyce threw him out.”

“But not at Susan’s request,” Lupo guessed.

“That’s right,” Joslin said. “Susan said she excused herself to go to freshen up. But when she came back, the poor guy had been tossed out. She asked her housemates what had happened, but by then, most of them were too sauced to care.”

Cutter quickly reviewed the case in his head. The defense had brought up that lots of alcohol was being consumed at that party – Joyce Foley insisted it was mostly sangria – so memories were kind of fuzzy, particularly about Susan asking Joyce Foley to have Lasky shown the door. Even Joyce Foley was not sure about someone named Susan being in her sorority at the time.

“Anyway, she pays my fee, and asks me to find Lasky,” Joslin continued. “A week later, I find him here in New York, working at that science magazine. I go back to Miami to tell her about Lasky, only I find out she’s dead, courtesy of her husband.”

Cutter, Connie, and Lupo, all looked at each other. None of this was exculpatory, but it shed a new light on the case. Ned Lasky still committed two heinous murders, including that of Joyce Foley’s twelve-year old son. But, one could argue, that Lasky may have committed these murders for nothing, especially if he knew that Susan Walden had been looking for him, if only to apologize.

Cutter thanked Joslin for the information, and Joslin departed. 

“So Susan Walden had some feeling for Ned Lasky after all,” Lupo said.

“Do you think we should tell Lasky’s lawyer?” Connie asked. “Lasky will now know the truth about Susan.”

“The truth won’t change the fact that Lasky killed two people,” Cutter said, “including a twelve-year old boy. All over a woman who he may not had a chance with anyway.”

“Even if to say she was sorry for leading him on?” Connie asked.

“Maybe she was sorry,” Cutter said. “Maybe Joyce Foley quashed the wrong bug. We’ll never know for sure.” He got up from his seat at the table. “All we know is that Ned Lasky will be in prison for pretty much the rest of his life, and it was all over a girl.”


End file.
